CEWA and EthosGen Win Energy Sprout Competition

CEWA Technologies, Inc. and EthosGen, both clients of the Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Northeastern Pennsylvania, won first and second place at the 2016 Energy Sprout competition. The competition was presented by the Sustainable Energy Fund and West Penn Power Sustainable Energy Fund, nonprofits that support and finance energy users seeking a sustainable energy future. The competition was open to Pennsylvania businesses, residents, and community organizations to submit new technologies and business practices that lead to a sustainable energy future.

In the Business Competition category, CEWA Technologies, Inc., Wyomissing, won first place and a $100,000 grant. The concept for CEWA Technologies was born when a group of technical personnel was considering ways to bring clean energy and water to remote parts of the world. Inexpensive, plentiful energy is the foundation of all modern economies. Concentrating solar power – an inexhaustible, sustainable, accessible source – is part of the solution.

CEWA has developed a new kind of point-concentrated solar power dish that will deliver power for industrial and institutional applications at a lower cost due to its innovative shape and construction. The dish is capable of delivering 30 kW of thermal power, 10 kW of electricity, or a combination of the two at a price competitive with fossil fuels without government subsidies. Such cost competitiveness is novel in solar power dishes, and critical to the growth of this alternative energy source. CEWA plans to use the winning grant to reduce manufacturing cost and time per unit.

EthosGen, Wilkes-Barre, won second place and a $25,000 grant. EthosGen is revolutionizing the renewable energy market with a patented and proprietary Thermal Energy to Electric Power System that captures and converts industrial waste heat into scalable on-site electrical power. The generator manufactured by EthosGen can leverage an abundant resource of waste heat that is significantly underutilized or rejected energy.

Commercial, industrial, and defense end-users experience the highest energy costs and most critical energy resiliency challenges. EthosGen’s competitive advantage provides for the greatest temperature range and output flow of waste heat, allowing the lowest-cost to manufacture and top operational productivity. As a renewable source, waste heat offers consistent energy surety over solar and wind power and consistent costs when compared with fossil fuels.

EthosGen won the 2014 Ben Franklin Venture Idol and the 2015 Ben Franklin iXchange Innovative Application of Technology award. In 2014, the company was selected from 2,500 applications as one of the top 25 technologies in Sir Richard Branson’s Extreme Tech Challenge.

About Sustainable Energy FundSustainable Energy Fund, a nonprofit organization, assists energy users in overcoming financial, educational, and regulatory barriers to a sustainable energy future. SEF provides a variety of services including financing energy conservation, energy efficiency and renewable energy projects; educating the leaders of today and tomorrow to create a passion for sustainable energy; and representing the interests of energy conservation, energy efficiency and renewable energy in proceedings before the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission.

AboutWest Penn Power Sustainable Energy FundWest Penn Power Sustainable Energy Fund (WPPSEF) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that invests in the deployment of sustainable energy technologies throughout the West Penn Power service region in Pennsylvania. WPPSEF investments are focused in three broad categories:

Deployment of sustainable and clean energy technologies;

Deployment of energy efficiency and conservation technologies; and

Facilitating economic development, environmental betterment, and public education as they relate to sustainable energy deployment in the WPP service region.